The Production and Reinforcement of Ignorance in Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-3-2016

Publication Title

Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy

First Page

643

Last Page

664

DOI

10.1080/02691728.2016.1213328

Abstract

One way to articulate the promise of interdisciplinary research is in terms of the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Disciplinary research yields deep knowledge of a circumscribed range of issues, but remains ignorant of those issues that stretch outside its purview. Because complex problems such as climate change do not respect disciplinary boundaries, disciplinary research responses to such problems are limited and partial. Interdisciplinary research responses, by contrast, integrate disciplinary perspectives by combining knowledge about different issues and as a result reduce ignorance about more aspects of the problem. In this paper, we develop this idea and argue that while interdisciplinary research can help remediate damaging ignorance about complex problems, it also creates conditions in which other damaging forms of ignorance can arise. We illustrate this point in detail with three case studies before discussing three implications of our analysis for identifying and managing deleterious ignorance in the context of interdisciplinary research.

Rights

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Social Epistemology on Sept.3, 2016, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02691728.2016.1213328.

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